Or free, bird-hearted, bend back the throat,
With a vigorous look at the blue,
And launch from my soul one wild, true note,
Is the thing that my heart would do!
God’s life! the blood o’ the earth is mine!
And the mood o’ the earth I’ll take,
And brim my soul with her wonderful wine,
And sing till my heart doth break!
NOONING
I
Weak winds that make the waters wink;
White clouds that sail from lands of Fable
To white Utopias, vague, that brink
Sky-gulfs of blue unfathomable:
Their rolling shadows, drifting
O’er hills of forest, lifting
Wild peaks of purple range, that loom and sink.
II
Warm knolls, whereon the Summer dreams;
And droning dells, where all her brightness
Lies, lulled with hymns of mountain-streams’
Far-foaming falls of windy whiteness:
Where, from the glooming hollow,
With cawing crows that follow,
The hunted hawk wings wearily and screams.